The Best Days And Times To Do Your Grocery Shopping At Trader Joe's

One of the top mistakes everyone makes when shopping at Trader Joe's is not considering the right day and time to visit the super-popular grocer. Plan your trip just right, and you'll enjoy great deals on viral food items, new colors of the famous Trader Joe's lunch bags, and plenty of samples without shopping cart gridlock. Come at the wrong time, however, and you'll potentially be miserable from the time you turn into the jam-packed parking lot until the moment you crawl through the deep line to check-out, pathetically schlepping your paper sack of hard-won booty as you wonder whether it was even worth leaving the house.

The "best" time to shop at TJ's really depends on what you are after. Do you want first dibs on the freshest stock, or are you trying to avoid the crowds? Early mornings are when perishables get replenished, and weekdays are best for crowd control. Accordingly, you can enjoy both by making your Trader Joe's run first thing in the morning on a Tuesday or Wednesday. While afternoons and weekends are by far the worst options and should be avoided at all costs, some shoppers swear that late evenings right before the store closes are a great time to stroll the store.

It makes a lot of sense that weekday mornings would be the sleepiest time to shop at Trader Joe's, as many potential shoppers are busy with jobs that adhere to traditional schedules. On a Reddit thread dedicated to sniffing out the best days and times to shop at Trader Joe's, the overwhelming consensus was that weekday mornings were ideal, especially if you could arrive right after the store opened. Mid-week trips are favored because employees have had time to restock after the weekend rush: "I can go in, get what I need after restocking from the busy weekends, and never have to worry about crowds and parking," one Redditor said, talking about the morning timeslots. Others argued that late night shopping was superior, but with a caveat: "The shelves are almost emptied out by the end of the day," a commenter grudgingly admitted.

Of course, not everybody has the flexibility in their schedules to schedule grocery store trips for when few other people will be out shopping. There is a reason that afternoons and weekends are so crazy, after all — that's when the most people have time for errands. If you are lucky enough to have mornings free during the week, however, you should be able to browse at leisure and run your own assessment of the best and worst Trader Joe's snacks to purchase.